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UMass Amherst Group Travels to Russian Universities

June 4, 2001

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AMHERST, Mass. - Eight faculty members and one graduate student from the University of Massachusetts will travel to Russia on June 8 for a two-week mission to Yaroslav-the-wise Novgorod State University, the Pskov Center for Regional Planning, and St. Petersberg State Technical University.

The trip is funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs. It is the latest in an eight-year series of projects led by Richard P. Taupier, of the The Environmental Institute at UMass, and Meir Gross, professor in department of landscape architecture and regional planning (LARP).

The exchange was designed to assist Russian faculty at the three academic institutions to address the demands of development and environmental protection in northeast Russia. The eight-year series of visits between researchers and staff at UMass and the Russian universities has generated contracts totaling more than $3 million and has brought many Russian students and faculty members to the Amherst campus, Taupier says.

During this year’s trip, Craig Moore, of the Isenberg School of Management, and Maureen Lempke, of the Lincoln Land Institute,in Cambridge, Mass., and an adjunct professor in LARP, will teach at Pskov for most of the two-week period. Joseph Larson, professor emeritus, and Robert Muth, of the department of natural resources conservation, will consult and teach at Yaroslav-the-wise Novgorod State University and the Rdeysky State Nature Reserve. Robert Wilson, of the department of hotel, restaurant and travel administration, and Ben Branch of the Isenberg School of Management, will teach and work with at St. Petersberg. Taupier, Gross, and graduate student Gerald Rideout will be visiting all three institutions as project coordinators.